mguerra

Sonos Installed I set up Sonos and have it distributed to 5 zones, it's damn cool! And zero audio dropouts compared to using the Apple WiFi with Airport Express units. You can tap in to your Pandora account, or your iTunes library, or about eight jillion radio stations, your podcasts, an iPod or a CD player, or a stereo tuner, or...just about anything. Then send it all over the house wirelessly and reliably. You are not limited to the internet radio stations that are preloaded, all you need to do to listen to ANY station is add the URL to the radio list. Figure on it costing about $350 to $500 per zone, it ain't cheap. But oh so sweet! All you could want to know is on the Sonos website, but I will explain a thing or two. Each zone or room has audio signal distributed to it by a Zone Player. There are three kinds. One has no power amp, the Zone Player 90, and it feeds signal to any powered speaker, boombox or audio system you already have in that zone. The other player has a power amp, the Zone Player 120; you simply connect it to a pair of speakers. And the third player, the Zone Player S5, is a powered speaker system itself. To get access to internet content, Pandora, internet radio stations, Napster , Rhapsody, Last FM, and Sirius you connect a Zone Bridge to your router. You control the entire system in several different ways. There is a free desktop controller for your computer, Mac or PC; or you can download a free controller app to your iPod Touch or iPhone, or you can buy a Sonos handheld controller for $350.! Needless to say, I'm using the free Mac desktop controller as well as iPod Touch and iPhone controllers. Anyone in the house can control any zone independently with any handy controller. All zones can play the same content, or each zone can play it's own unique music. You can link any number of zones together. It is really quite spectacular, and you can keep adding zones from time to time as you see fit, to a max of 32 zones. All in all it's far superior to shooting audio around the house with wi-fi and the Airport Express. Highly, totally, unquestionably recommended! My install was atypical, so I needed a fair bit of support, which was prompt and thorough. You can phone, email, or live chat with the support folks; and I did all three. If you do a standard install, you will probably have the whole thing up and running in a few minutes. See the Sonos website for more info. http://www.sonos.com/

Apple/ Sonos With the Apple system, you can only listen to one source at a time, over the entire network. So Sonos is superior in that you can listen to any source in any room. With Apple, up until recently, you could only control the music at the computer itself, but at least now there is an iPhone app that lets you use the iPhone as a remote. Still, the audio dropouts are so frustrating, I may pop for the Sonos. It gets nothing but stellar reviews.

dropouts I am sorely tempted to try Sonos. The cost is pretty steep, however. With iTunes, a computer with a wireless card and some $89. Airport Express units, you can transmit music all over the house to any powered speakers, for a fraction of the price. Imperfectly, I might add. The worst problem with Air Tunes is audio dropouts, this has occurred with both my old and new iMacs and several different Airport Extreme base stations. So it's probably not a bad wireless card, or router. It's quite maddening. Fetz, I take it you do not have intermittent audio dropouts with Sonos? Sonos is also quite a bit more flexible and powerful than a computer and some Airport Express units. Might be worth the price of admission.

Fetz, I humbly suggest you take as much time as necessary to research and understand how DNA and RNA work. Once you fully understand this, on a biochemical level, you will realize that there is NO possibility that this code could have occurred by chance. From that point on, reason and natural law will lead you to the inescapable conclusion. I have never seen that website before. I used that link, btw, simply because it gave a quick and concise explanation of the fraudulent "science" surrounding the Piltdown scandal. It is the prototypical example of faking science for whatever purpose. Interestingly, however, and ironically, both the Piltdown and global warming frauds share a common thread. Both hoaxes serve(d) the purpose of denying God and promoting secular humanism. The sad and bitter reality in both cases is that lies and falsehoods were/are held out as science, which, properly conducted, is an objective pursuit of pure truth! Scientists being imperfect humans, this, I suppose, is not unexpected.

Success Well, the apple brined turkey was a smash hit! I cooked it in a roasting pan with a shelf in it and caught all the juices and drippings for gravy. The gravy had a real shot of pecan smoke flavor, which several people really liked. Others preferred some "normal" gravy we also made. The finish temp was 168 in the thigh, and that was thoroughly cooked without being at all overcooked. So thanks to the Weber forum for the recipe. Breast was quite moist, not the least bit dry, thanks to the 42 hour brining I suppose. I also did a bonus breast, injected with Creole Butter marinade, which was also super. Cooking time was pretty quick, about 3 plus hours at 350 degrees. I held these birds wrapped in foil, toweled and coolered for about 4 hours, and they were still quite hot, I'm sure above the safe limit. I'm fairly cavalier about holding beef and pork after cooking, but not poultry. One great thing about the KK and the CyberQ is the ability to achieve and hold a definite temperature much more reliably than an electric oven. I'm sure lots of folks have had Thanksgiving troubles getting the bird done properly and on time in an oven. We sure have in the past; not with KK! I'll probably do turkey more often, after this good success. So for those of you who did KK turkeys, how did you all come out?

ok Gotcha. Found it on the web.

Yes CS, you got me stoked to go out and do a bonus bird this afternoon, in addition to tomorrow's main Apple Brined/ Pecan Smoked beauty. Life IS good. And KK is a big part of that. Say, what is that Media Com you reference?

yum! That is one awesome looking soup recipe! I'm going to get the ingredients and be ready to throw in the carcass ASAP. Good one.

rant My post had nothing to do with Homer's Bucket. I just thought the Igloo was a cool idea. I don't care about food safe plastics, I have brined in an old swimming pool chlorine bucket. Homer's Bucket would suit me! Life's too short to be scared shitless of every little thing. I spray the hell out of my house with Dursban and Diazinon. When they were banned, I hoarded gallons of the stuff! Doing the same now with incandescent bulbs. Swine Flu, Global Warming, blah, blah, blah...it's all a crock of shit. Especially global warming, the biggest scientific fraud since Piltdown Man. http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs200 ... ltdown.asp And would you believe it, it's the sorry English science establishment, East Anglia University this time, perpetrating a shameless prostitution of science once again. As a scientist, I find it reprehensible and disgusting.

brining vessel Here's a brining vessel, guaranteed food safe! http://primogrillforum.com/gallery/data/500/igloo.jpg

addendum I brined the bird in a Reynolds turkey roasting bag, inside a mop bucket that I washed out real good prior to use. (In case the bag broke.) I squeezed out all the air and tied it off, to get good coverage.

Wow!! The apple brine/ pecan smoke turkey is a winner! I used a fresh breast, not enhanced or juiced up, and the brine made it excellent. The recipe makes 5 quarts, which was just enough to cover the breast, double the recipe for a whole bird. I don't know how moist or juicy you can get a turkey breast, I'll just say this was juicy enough to not be typically dry. So that's moist enough. The flavor is a mouth popping blend of all the ingredients and the smoke. My wife raved, and that is saying something because she is a turkey expert. Here's the link: http://www.virtualweberbullet.com/turkey5.html I did not air dry the bird, since we don't eat the skin. And of course the Weber specific instructions won't apply to your ceramic grill, other than the temperature. It went straight from the brine onto the KK. Off the grill, I foiled it up tight and wrapped in towels, let it rest for about 2-1/2 hours. It was still very hot at serving time. All in all a great cook, and one we won't be saving for once a year! I only hope I get the whole turkey as lip licking good as this breast came out. Give it a try!

quick Test breast is done, resting. It cooked pretty quick, maybe 2 hours plus or minus for this approx. 6 lber. Brined with weber forum apple brine recipe for about 14 hours, cooked at 340 til 165 internal. Lump was 50/50 mix of Royal Oak and Cowboy, and a fair bit of pecan smoking chunks, indirect fire on main grill. Taste test in a while!

Test bird on Wow, you guys are on it! Sitting out back, got an apple-ginger brined turkey smoking on a pecan fire. Drinking ginger ale and smoking an Acid Kuba Kuba! Listening to David Grisman and Stephane Grapelli. Bluebird sky, 65 degrees It's a test bird. Starting early on T day to make sure bird is ready, then 1 hr drive down to San Antonio. I'll do the towel/cooler hold.

Let's put all our Thanksgiving cooking posts here in this thread, sort of a "Turkey Central"! Remember, the recipe section should just be recipes, not long threads. LarryR kindly posted a link to Brining, here: http://www.virtualweberbullet.com/brining.html I have just finished preparing two portions of the Apple Brine. Once they chill, I'll do a test bird tomorrow. Then the main family bird goes on the KK about 6AM Thursday. The whole family is depending on my bird, so it better come out right! So, what do you all have planned for KK Thanksgiving?

tips Soaking the smoking wood is unnecessary, it serves no function. The moisture is simply driven off as steam, and then the wood burns. A number of folks here have made an excellent case for using a smoker box, however. It alters the nature of the smoke by causing the volatile, flammable gasses to be burned in the fire. Search the forums to find the threads. Heat soaking the KK prior to putting on the meat is optional, but not necessary. I like to have the meat in there from the get go to spend more time in the smoke. Other folks don't like the "early" white, billowy smoke and wait for the thin blue smoke. Your taste buds will guide you in this, if you try it both ways. Spend some time reading through the old posts and you will find all the answers! And here is a nice primer: http://www.nakedwhiz.com/infocentral.htm

on the KK now I've got the Italian Pork Stew going right now, from the Primo forums. And this time I am actually using pork!

??? What?!

Huh? I use a spoon and a glass when cleaning when cleaning the fat from a yes, yes yes... What?!

The fast butt method works very well. The flavor and texture of the meat is almost identical to a slow cook. The party guests raved as usual, yawn. The one difference is that it is fractionally harder to pull apart. Other than that, if you are pressed for time, I give it a solid thumbs up. Interestingly, the butt I bought had cooking directions on the package that said to "Slow Roast" at 350 for four hours! As it happens, this 10 pounder took 4 hours at 350 to reach 190 internal! The lesson I learned from this is that you can cook a pork butt at any temp between 220 to 350 and get great results. My suggestion is to pick a cooking temp that fits your time needs. If you want to go do something for awhile, cook at a little lower temp til you get back, then increase the temp when you get back. It's the same hybrid method I suggested for the brisket. There is extreme time flexibility available for these cooks. If there is the emotional appeal of a 14 hour cook, do that. But, it's good to know you can start a butt at 8 AM and have it ready for lunch! My next experiment will be to foil one at the 160 to 170 temp, like the brisket trick, and see what that does in regards to cooking time, texture and flavor.

Lump Lump. They make briquettes, and the bags look nearly identical to the lump. Check the bag carefully when you buy. Of course, the briquette bag weighs a ton compared to the lump, so you can tell just by heft, if you are not looking.

pull it right I might have posted this before. When pulling a pork butt, I want to remove all the fat possible. So I don't just grab two forks and start shredding the whole butt. All the fat and connective tissue will then be incorporated into your pile of shred. It's almost impossible to pick out all these little shredded bits. The butt is composed of a number of muscles. These muscles are separated from each other by a layer of fat and connective tissue. I try to pull apart the individual muscles from each other, whole. Then clean each muscle by scraping off the fat and connective tissue with the side of a knife or a fork. Scrape along the length of the muscle fibers, parallel to them. This is best done with the meat still hot from cooking. Now you will have a pile of muscles, nearly fat free, you can shred, cut, chop or whatever. Is this how most of you are doing this? Or are there a lot of you just shredding from the get go?

set up and progress Fire in the basket, fully loaded with Royal Oak, heat deflector on basket handles, butt up on main grill. CyberQ II set at 325, blower port open 1/2, top vent just cracked enough to allow a little smoke egress when blower is off. The butt has been on for one hour, and its' temp has gone from 36 degrees at start to 104 now.

not poultry! To be clear, I would never be so cavalier with poultry! That stuff scares me, even "properly" cooked and handled. Beef and pork don't worry me at all to use the methods I described. There are no reported cases of botulism related to barbecued meats.

hot fast butt I have a hot fast pork butt going. Temp is running 330ish. I will cook it to full finish this time, and give a report. This one I'm just cooking indirect til done at 190. Next time, I might experiment with foiling it at 160 or so, just like the fast brisket method, just to see what happens. This better be good because it is the main course at a late afternoon lunch party! Probably it will be fine, because the last ones I did were pulled off the fire too soon, sat on the counter for a couple hours, cooled off some , and then went back on the fire; they were excellent.